Building the iHome - part 1
This week I will discuss how I plan to integrate a series of Apple products to create a fairly low-cost whole-home audio solution. This will be a two part post, with part 2 to be written after moving in to our new house in December. This post will discuss the theorhetical and technical aspects of implementing the solution, while part 2 will be a hands-on step-by-step guide. So why the iHome? Read on.
As some of you know, we are now in the middle of having our house built. During the planning and selection process, we determined that we wanted to have “whole-home audio”. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a solution that provides the home owner with music on demand in several rooms throughout the house. Generally, this involves built-in ceiling speakers in each room, with a little audio console built into the wall near the light switch (often the same size as the light switch, and allows you to control the volume and potentially the CD track). This all connects to a little console, usually in the basement, that provides radio and CD options. Sounds cool huh? It is. It’s also outrageously expensive. As in $4000 and up expensive. Ouch.
In my quest to find a cheaper solution I researched a number of options. One of the issues that kept popping up was that I wanted access to MY music whenever I wanted. I didn’t want to be limited to CDs or radio. What good is having a library of 2000 songs in iTunes if I can’t access them? All these whole-home solutions provide CD and radio, but only a simple audio input. That means I would need a computer running iTunes next to the console, and have no control over changing tracks.
The goal in creating the iHome was:
- to provide seamless audio from iTunes in three separate rooms in the house
- to allow me to change tracks, select playlists, and control volume wherever I am
- to do all this for under $2000
The biggest hurdle in finding a suitable solution is the price tag. Finding a solution like this for less than half the price of a standard installation (with more features) was an issue. That led me to looking into a few 3rd party solutions that are designed to provide access to iTunes music wirelessly from any room. One of them was Sonos, which provides a cool full-colour LCD controller to select your iTunes music and play it wirelessly in any room. It seems to be a decent slick-looking solution, and works on both Mac and PCs. Unfortunately, there are three major roadblocks with this solution: You need to plug in the wireless device into an electrical outlet somewhere in the room (which defeats the purpose of going wireless), you need to plug in external speakers (which take up space in the room, and create visible wiring) and it costs a freakin’ fortune (for two rooms, it would cost around $3500).
As I was ready to give up, I randomly came across someone mentioning the AirTunes functionality of the Apple Airport Express. The Airport Express is a tiny wireless router that allows you to stream your iTunes music to it. You plug in this little wireless router (the size of a standard wall adapter) anywhere in your house, plug in some speakers, and you can send your iTunes music to it. This got me thinking… and eventually provided the roadmap for the entire Apple home audio solution I like to call my iHome.
What’s required:
- Ceiling mounted speakers (about $600 a pair installed*)
- One Airport Extreme base station (about $120)
- Two Airport Express devices (about $200)
- One Apple TV (about $250)
- Two cheap amplifiers (about $300)
The total cost of this setup is about $2070… just a tad over the bugdet BUT with an unexpected bonus that I’m willing to pay the extra $70 for. Also note that the bulk of this cost ($1200) comes from the outrageously expensive cost of the ceiling mounted speakers. We are dealing with our home builder to have them installed during construction, and builders tend to overcharge. Unfortunately, we don’t have much of a choice in the matter (we need that part to be seamless, and to be included in the mortgage). If you are doing this to an existing house, you can likely do it yourself for $800 less, making the total cost under $1300.
There will be a pair of speakers mounted in the ceiling of the bedroom, and in the ceiling of the kitchen. That way, there are no visible speakers, wires, or devices anywhere in sight. All the wires will be through the walls going to a collection point in the basement. The basement will have my home theater sound system already, so no need for additional speakers down there. The Airport Extreme will be installed on the main level. It acts as a wireless N router, and will supply the whole house with wireless internet (as well as serving up the audio). My computer with iTunes will be in my home office upstairs. The two Airport Express devices will be in the basement. One will be labeled “kitchen” and will plug into one of the amplifiers, which will have the kitchen speaker wires plugged in. The other will be labeled “bedroom” and will plug into the other amplifier, which will have the bedroom speaker wires plugged in. Finally, the Apple TV will be hooked up to my Home Theatre system (HDTV/Projector and 5.1 surround sound system).
You might be asking yourself how I plan to tie this all together, right? How will I control the tracks and volume? Will I have to run down to the Apple TV for control? Will I have to go use the computer upstairs? Well… I can do those things, yes. But I can also use my iPhone from anywhere in the house. Using an ingenious piece of software called “Signal”, I can use my iPhone to select where in the house the music is playing, set the track, the volume, and any number of other settings. I can even see the album art of the track that’s currently playing, and cue up a bunch of songs my friends request for playing later on. Pretty incredible stuff, isn’t it. I can be pouring a bath in the ensuite and decide I want some relaxing music. I simply press a button on the iPhone, select the bedroom and press play. Voila… magically there is music coming in the bedroom from the invisible speakers in the ceiling.
So what’s the cool bonus I talked about? Apple TV. In addition to providing my iTunes music in the basement via my Home Theater setup, it also provides video. Any of my own videos I create are imported into my iTunes library, so they are instantly available to view in full HD on the Apple TV. I can even watch YouTube videos from the comfort of my couch, watch the latest movie trailers, and even rent videos wirelessly in HD, all from the Apple TV.
So there you have my plans for the ultimate iHome. When I move into the new house in December, I will be documenting the whole process with video or pictures, and writing up a full guide on how to set it all up. Don’t forget to check back in January for part 2.
A7
Tags: a7, airport, apple, apple tv, art, express, extreme, home audio, ihome, multiple, Music, rooms
April 21st, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Awesome! nuff said
June 19th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Good on ya Andy. I had envisioned the same sort of theatrical setup in my home to be. It all stemmed from the idea that you know what, I love music, and I love having it everywhere I go. And it’s not about only having a few songs, its about having your entire collection available at your fingertips. Apple has done very well in implementing this idea with the iPod alone, but throw in the interconnectivity of it all and you’ve got yourself a dream come true. Do you remember Back to the Future 2? How sweet would it be to be able to walk in to your house, tell the lights to come on, tell the music to play jazz, and set the oven to roast?
In my personal setup I was all about having the little brain console in every room in the house. Every room would be wirelessly connected through this “Jeeves” device that was basically the brains behind controlling all of the lights, locks, music, windows, ambient temperature, you name it. The device would simply dock at its station, whether it be hardwired on the wall or just a table-top dock, so you could leave it to charge and carry it with you should you be confined to the couch or hot-tub. (PS it’s waterproof.) It would all be voice controlled too if your thumbs were too lazy (I love how design has turned into how much we can do without actually lifting a muscle.) Ergonomics at its finest
The whole thing could be master-controlled from the “Dungeon”, a secret play-the-right-tune or pull-the-right-book kind of access room with walls of flatscreens and some eerie smoke coming up through a metal bridge. Hook the whole thing up to the internet and you can literally control your house from your office or palm pilot.
But I mean if I had that house, would I ever leave?
PS I am currently filing a lawsuit against Marvel Comics for stealing all my ideas.
DAMN YOU IRON MAN!!!
Bye for now
JD